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Llb'^AP"' of CONGRESS 
Tw« Copies Received 

FEB 25 1904 

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Cop^ri^rJit 1904 



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OLD JAMESTOWN 

( A glance at its History, past and present. ) 
J^ J»- J*' 




INCE it has been decided to 
^ hold "The Anglo-American 
Settlemen r Tercentenary 
Expusition" at Norfolk, Vir- 
ginia, in 1Q07, a great deal ot 
interest centres about the 
ruins of "Old Iamestown." 
the sight of the first per- 
manent English settlement on Ameri- 
can soil. 

The history of its foundation takes us 
back to the beginning of the seventeenth 
centurv, when a number ot rich and in- 
fluential Englishmen became interested 
in Sir Walter Raleigh's schemes "to see 
an English nation planted in America" 
and. accordingly, several companies were 
organized for the purpose of sending col- 
onists to the New Wf^RLn. 

Those organizations were known as 
the Eondon and Plymouth companies and 
King James, being pleased with thei]- 
plans of colonization, granted the coast 



of North America from Cape Fear to the 
mouth of the Potomac River to the Lon- 
don company ; and from Long Island to 
Nova Scotia to the Plymouth company. 

In the year 1606, the former company, 
at whose head were such influential men 
as Sir Edward Sackville (afterwards the 
famous Earl of Dorset) and the Earl of 
Southampton (the friend of Essex and 
patron of Shakespeare) fitted out three 
small ships. 

This pigmy fleet was under the com- 
mand of Captain Christopher Newport. 
Captain John Smith, Bartholomew Gos- 
nold, and Edward Wingfield with Rev. 
Mr. Hunt acting as chaplain. They set 
sail from Blackwell December 19th, 1606, 
but were detained by contrary winds for 
six weeks within sight of the English 
coast, while discontentment and disorder 
daily threatened mutiny among the ad- 
venturers. Through the influence of the 
clergyman, Robert Hunt, the explorers 
became more content and finally reached 
the West Indies April 21st. 

Hoping to find the coast of North 
Carolina, where former attempts to col- 
onize had been made, they rested but a 
few days on these charming islands and 
then set sail once more. Being driven 
out of their course by a violent storm, 
they found themselves at the mouth ot 



Chesapeake bay, where they first caught 
sight of two points of land which they 
christened Cape Charles and Cape Henry 
in honor of the sons of their King. 

They also discovered a beautiful point 
of land on the western side of this bay, 
which they appropriately called Point 
Comfort as it was here they found shelter 
from the storm. The savages who dwelt 
upon this land, treated the explorers very 
kindly and led the way through fields of 
wavy corn to their village called Kecough- 
tan (the present town of Hampton), 
where they entertained their strange 
guests with corn bread, tobacco and a 
dance of welcome, musical accompani- 
ments being played on flutes of reeds. 

As the red men were so friendly to 
the weary voyagers, the site a beautiful 
stretch of land, and the climate delight- 
ful, it seems strange that they did not 
plant their colony here. However, the 
members of the genus homo never 
seem to be satisfied and these explorers 
acted in a similar manner to the discon- 
tented man. whom a legend tells us was 
sent to the forest for a stick. At first he 
saw many straight smooth sticks, but he 
said: ' ' Surely there are better ones farther 
on, " and with this thought in mind he con- 
tinued to the end of the forest where all 
he could find was a gnarled tree trunk. 



So with the explorers, they left this beau- 
tiful spot (now a famous winter resort) 
and sailed for some distance up the James 
river, where at length they chose a site 
for their colony on a peninsula lying north 
of the river, forty miles from its mouth. 

Captain John Smith was one of the 
bravest of men, but apparently not the 
wisest, for he considered this tract of 
land "as a fit place for a great city," 
whereas it was in reality a very unhealthy 
spot, having many marshes covered with 
water at high tide, making the soil an 
ideal nidus for malaria. The James river 
at this point is very muddy and the banks 
of the stream could not (even in those 
days) have presented any picturesquf 
appearance. Gosnold was very much 
opposed to landing here, but the majorit\- 
were of Smith's opinion and accordingly 
on the 13th of May. 1607. was made The 
Ftkst Permanent En(;i.ish Seitlemeni 
IN rnK Un'ited Sta tes, called Jamestown. 
in honor of King James. 

Despite Captain Smith's predictions. 
Jamestown never became a great city, but 
after struggling against many horrible 
massacres by the Indians, destructive 
tires, starvation and sickness, the capitol 
was moved to Williamsburg in 1700 and 
the cradle of the United States of America 
was left to the destruction of the elements. 



Now nothing remains of the old his- 
toric town but the ivy clad tower of the 
first Protestant church built on American 
soil and the ruins of the Ambler home- 
stead, where George Washington and 
Thomas Jefferson both received a wound 
to their self pride : the former being 
jilted by Mary Gary and the latter by 
Rebecca Burwell. 

In 1893 Mrs. Edward Barney, of Day- 
ton, Ohio, purchased this neglected land 
and presented twenty-three acres to the 
Association for Preservation of Virginia 
Antiquities. This association cleared 
away the underbrush and enclosed the 
ruins of the old church and its burial 
ground within a wire fence, placing the 
sacred spot under the surveillance of a 
custodian, who lives in a picturesque 
cottage within the earth fortifications 
erected here by the Gf)nfederates in the 
late war. 

For many years the land u)-)on which 
Jamestown once stood has been growing 
smaller, owing to the rough kisses ot the 
James river on her clay shores. For 
seven miles a swift current comes sweep- 
ing down unobstructed and the action of 
this current has already changed the one- 
time peninsula to an island. On the 
northern end of the island the waves have 
washed awav the shores to such an extent 



that the oldest ruins of Jamestown now 
lie under water and by rowing in a boat 
close to shore one can plainly see a mass 
of brick held together by its original 
cement, which is all that remains of a 
powder house built by Captain Smith as 
a place of safety for arms and ammunition. 

Several years ago Congress made an 
appropriation of $10,000 to build a sea 
wall as a protection for this historic spot 
from further damage, but an extra amount 
will be necessary for the work^s comple- 
tion and a bill favoring a second appro- 
priation has been introduced into the 
House of Representatives. 

The most interestmg relic of James- 
town is the old church tower, which is 
supposed to stand upon the spot where 
the colonists first worshipped ' ' under an 
old sail stretched between three or four 
trees to shadow them from the sun.' 
After a time a rude structure was built ot 
logs with a roof of rafts, sedge and earth, 
which was replaced in 1638 by a brick 
building 56x28 feet in dimension, with 
a tower 18 feet square. This building 
was destroyed by fire in 1676. but shortly 
afterwards rebuilt and occupied until 
1 700. Since that time the old church 
has been gradually crumbling away until 
nothing remains but the tower. 

Tradition says that the brick fruni 



which the church was built came from 
England. But Dr. Lyon G. Tyler. 
president of William and Mary college, 
has attempted to explode this theory, 
claiming that only a few bricks were 
brought to this country for ballast in 
English ships and that the material used 
in building the old church was made by 
Alexander Stoner from the clay on James 
Island, where he was allotted an acre of 
ground for a brick kiln. 

At that time all brick was called 
"English brick" according to a law that 
each brick must be of a certain shape and 
size and Dr. Tyler thinks that this ac- 
counts for the belief that the old church 
and the early mansions along the James 
river were supposed to have been built of 
brick made in the mother country. 

Around the ruins of the church is the 
burial ground, where a few tombs are to 
be seen and others are being unearthed 
through excavation made by the "Asso- 
ciation for Preservation of Virginia An- 
tiquities." The present wall around the 
graves was built in 1800 from the frag- 
ments of a wall still standing at that time 
and which covered far more space than 
the more modern enclosure. 

Among the graves discovered here 
there is one of a truly honest if not 
righteous man for his epitaph reads : 



j^orw 


in tht ^nrisii uf Bhitr 








A (Sr^at ^'ixuier 


^iUnitiu^ 


for a 3o^«l Bcsiirrertuut. 



Rev. James Blair, the first president 
ot William and Mary college, is also buried 
here. On his right side lies his wife, Sarah 
Blair (daughter of the original Benjamin 
Harrison, whose name appears upon 
almost every page of Virginian history), 
and on his left side is interred Lady Fran- 
ces Berkeley, the wife of Sir William 
Berkeley, who at one time was Governor 
of Virginia. 

In the spring of 1901, under the direc- 
tion of Mr. John Tyler, the excavation of 
the whole interior of the church was be- 
gun and many interesting discoveries 
made. 

The four walls of the original church 
were found to be in a fair state of pre- 
servation to a height from six inches to 
three feet above the foundation. Lying 
ncross the north and south of the aisle 
a tomb was unearthed, which judging 
from the armorial bearings on the stone, 
must have once held the body of a knight. 



but unfortunateh no trace of the plate 
containing the inscriptions now remains. 
Near this tomb was a less pretentious 
one bearing the following epitaph : "Hert' 
lyeth John Clough, minister, who depart- 
ed this life iith of Januar)', ib " and 

in the north-west corner of the church a 
third t(jmb was found, which contained 
the skeleton ot a man six feet six inches 
tall and one foot and hve inches across 
the shoulders. The skull also was of a 
pecuHar formation unlike that of the 
normal white man. 

The unearthing of a knight s tomb fur- 
nishes conclusive proof that the site of 
the old church ruins is the exact spoi 
where the cokmists hrst worshipped as all 
evidences go to prove this tomb to be 
that of Sir George Yeardley. who was 
rrovernor at the time of his death in 1627. 
In those days it was customary to honc^r 
persons of distinction, after death, by 
burying them in the church-yard, and 
there was no other man during that time 
who could have been appropriately in- 
terred in so sacred a s]>ot in a tomb 
bearing armorial designs. 

The little island (now scarcely two 
and a half miles long by a half mile wide) 
which shelters these relics of the early 
English colonists, has witnessed more of 
American history than any other place on 



this continent, being the fountain head of 
all American legislative activity and hav- 
ing received a baptism of patriotic blood 
in both of the great wars. 

Therefore all true lovers of history 
should make an effort to visit this most 
historical spot of our glorious republic 
during the coming celebration of The 
Anglo-American Tercentenary Settle- 
ment Exposition to be held in 1907 at 
Norfolk. Virginia, only sixty miles dis- 
tant from "Old Jamestown." 




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